


The End Of The Road - remix

by TameAVagrantLion



Category: The Avengers (Marvel Movies), The Avengers (Marvel) - All Media Types
Genre: Angst with a Happy Ending, Depression, M/M, Post-Avengers: Infinity War Part 1 (Movie), Protective Steve Rogers, Suicidal Thoughts, Tony Stark Needs a Hug
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-07-22
Updated: 2018-07-23
Packaged: 2019-06-14 14:10:08
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 8,473
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15390462
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/TameAVagrantLion/pseuds/TameAVagrantLion
Summary: Three months after the Snap, Steve Rogers arrives at Bruce Banner's house to find a severely depressed Tony Stark, and drag him onto a road trip that will change them both.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

  * Inspired by [The End of the Road](https://archiveofourown.org/works/940719) by [zelda_zee](https://archiveofourown.org/users/zelda_zee/pseuds/zelda_zee). 



> This Fanfic is a Remix of said work, done for the Lost fandom, I just adapted it for Stony. All credit to the original author. All mistakes my own.  
> Enjoy!

* * *

 

**I remember when the world broke in, to rip apart my soul.**

**For years after one event, I thought myself not whole.**

**My hours were spent trying, to fix it with tape and glue.**

**Until one day I discovered, Everyone else was broken too.**

**Here we were with pieces, of ourselves in both our hands.**

**So fragile and so open, that I began to understand,**

**Maybe I’d been greedy, to want my soul all to myself.**

**When it could be a lot more helpful,**

**In the palms of someone else.**

**-** Erin Hanson

* * *

 

Tony Stark doesn’t have the life he deserves; he has no illusions about that. The life he deserves doesn’t involve actually being alive.

He’d never counted on surviving, once everything was said and done. Hadn’t planned for it, had made no preparation, mental or physical. He’d dreamed of a life with Pepper, yes. But deep down he had known it was all a lie. Both to her and himself.

Truth was, he had never wasted time considering the ramifications of surviving a galaxy wide massacre. But having to live with the weight of billions of innocent souls, their blood on his hands, was a whole different story.

Pepper. Happy. Fury. Rhodey. The names all piling up, a heavy burden on his conscience. And the name that hurt the most, the one he could barely stand to think about. The child that he’d dragged into a battle far bigger than himself, at only sixteen years old.

_It isn’t right_ , he says to Bruce, a knot in his throat barely letting him speak. He’s sitting on the couch in Bruce’s sunny living room in LA two months after his return from Titan. It hadn’t been hard finding out where Banner had relocated to. Tony had knocked on Bruce’s door out of the blue and even though Bruce has enough on his plate just trying to hold himself together and do what he can for the rest of them, he still takes Tony in. Tony just could not stand the emptiness of the Tower by himself. Everyone had taken the loss hard, but he had taken it the hardest. He felt himself unable to function, unwilling to move on.

Tony goes to Bruce because he doesn’t know what else to do. He realizes it’s selfish and inconsiderate to take advantage of his friend in this way just because, whatever his own burdens, Bruce won’t refuse him. Bruce doesn’t even have to say anything – he just meets Tony’s eyes as he stands there on his doorstep and Bruce gets it – he’s been there himself after all, dangling over the abyss with a mind full of blood and death and darkness. The only options Tony has been able to come up with are going to Bruce or putting a blaster to his head and blowing it straight to hell. Tony isn’t sure why he’s gone with Bruce, why he doesn’t take the easy way out – though maybe it’s because it _is_ the easy way. And the easy way isn’t something that Tony feels he deserves.

_Survivor’s guilt,_ Bruce calls it, says they all suffer from it to some extent, but they both know that doesn’t quite cover it, at least not where Tony is concerned.

“I think I’ve reached the end of the road, Bruce. I don’t think I can do this,” Tony says quietly, his eyes filled with tears. He is no longer able to maintain his façade, all his practiced cold stoicism and precise competence in tatters at his feet. All he has left is the truth, stark and ugly. He blinks, his eyes burning, his eyelashes wet. He reaches for the glass of water in front of him on the table, but his hand is shaking, and he quickly draws it back. “I never thought I’d come back. I was supposed to die on that planet before I let anything happen to any of them”.

“But you didn’t,” Bruce says. Tony glances at him. Bruce’s expression is not without sympathy, but Tony knows that Bruce has only so much to spare for him. There are plenty others trying to adjust to having survived. Natasha and Bruce had rekindled their nascent relationship, apparently realizing that life was too short not to spend it with the people you cared for. It had occupied much of Bruce’s time. He was trying to find happiness again, and here was Tony dragging him down, making him care for him as if he was a child. Tony winced, painfully aware of the burden he was on his friend.

“You didn’t’, and now you have to deal with that”, Bruce ended.

“How? How can I deal with that, hm?” Tony studies Bruce’s face, hoping he has the answer.

Bruce just looks at him out of old, tired eyes and sighs. “I don’t know, Tony. But you weren’t meant to die there. None of us were.”

“I wish – I wish I hadn’t returned. I could have stayed. I could have let myself die on Titan but I the end, I was a coward. I didn’t want to be left behind.”

“You couldn’t have stayed; the Avengers wouldn’t have let you.”

Tony’s lips twist humorlessly. “You say it as if there still was an ‘Avengers’ to speak of.”

“Yeah, well. As long as we’re here you know you can count on us. Call it what you will. Avengers, friends, family.”

Bruce makes up the bed in his guest room and in the morning when Tony goes to butter his toast he can’t find a knife, and when he opens Bruce’s medicine cabinet in search of aspirin there are no razor blades, no prescription bottles.

“You’ll stay here”, Bruce says, in a voice that brooks no argument. Tony doesn’t think he has it in him to argue anyway. He spends the days in a gray haze, laying on the bed in Bruce’s guest room. Bruce comes and goes, getting on with his life, Tony supposes. He doesn’t really pay enough attention to know if Bruce works or socializes or just goes out alone. All Tony knows is that sometimes he’s there and sometimes he’s gone. Tony stays in his room with the blinds closed and the door shut and when Bruce comes in to check on him Tony lies still and deepens his breathing and Bruce leaves without speaking. He probably isn’t fooled.

In the evening Bruce makes Tony sit beside him on the couch and watch interminable science documentaries, the viewing of which doesn’t help mitigate Tony’s depression. Bruce makes sure Tony eats and drinks and he tries to get him to go to a psychiatrist until Tony points out that if he actually disclosed the things he’s done he would not be believed or he’d be locked up in a psychiatric institution. Then Bruce tries to get him to visit Nat, or Thor, and when that doesn’t work he brings them to the house to talk to Tony. After that, Tony makes Bruce promise to back off, and he does, though sometimes Tony catches Bruce staring at him with a worried frown, as if Tony is a particularly tricky puzzle that he’s trying to figure out.

Bruce is out one afternoon when there’s a knock on the door. Tony ignores it, burrowing down further into the covers, but whoever it is won’t go away, knocking and knocking and finally pounding so hard that the door rattles in its frame.

Tony gets up and shuffles down the hall, rubbing his face, still mostly asleep, all his instincts shot to shit. Or no, that isn’t right. His instincts are there, he just doesn’t care enough to pay attention to them. Maybe it’s Thor? He probably wouldn’t have knocked. Whoever it is, they’re still pounding on the door when he cracks it open.

“Steve?” he mutters, then blinks in surprise.

“Took you long enough. You napping in the middle of the day?”, Steve says, with a smile that is more than a little forced. But he looks determined and so he steps in, slightly pushing Tony in the process.

Whatever Tony had expected, it isn’t Steven Rogers, looking unnaturally clean and well groomed in jeans and a white t-shirt, sunglasses hanging from the front of it.

“What… are you doing here?” Tony asks, feeling slow and dull-witted. He’s finding it hard to process Steve’s presence, he seems to flash and shine, all brightness and motion, as if he’s soaked up the energy of the sun. It makes Tony want to shade his eyes when he looks at him.

“Just dropped by to say hello, it’s been long.” Steve says, giving him a sincerer smile this time, but still looking slightly apologetic. He proceeds to sit down on the couch, with no apparent intention of leaving soon.

“Did you know I was here?” Tony asks, realizing Steve doesn’t seem in the least surprised to find him answering the door at Bruce’s house. Especially taking into account how their last encounter had gone. It surprised Tony a little to find those memories didn’t stir any emotions anymore, didn’t cause him any pain. It all seemed so far away now.

“Bruce might have mentioned it.” Replied Steve, avoiding his gaze.

“Oh.” Tony sits on the couch too. He feels as if he’s in a fog. He brushes his hair, only then realizing how long and tangled it’s gotten. He can’t recall the last time he combed it. “I – uh. Bruce isn’t here, if you – that is, I do not know when he will return.” He squints up at Steve, who is watching him with a little disappointed look on his face. “You are here to see him?”

“I’m here to see you, as a matter of fact,” Steve informs him.

“Me? Why?” Was Cap looking to make amends with him? If so, why now? Tony had nothing against him, but it wasn’t as if they’d be back to being the best of friends. Not in his state. It was so blatantly obvious that he wasn’t well, what was Cap thinking? That having a heart to heart could suddenly make everything okay again? It could not be farther away from his priorities right now. Maybe Steve’s guilt about what he did was just now settling in and he needed Tony’s forgiveness to move on. If that was the case, then Tony would give it to him and be done with it.

“We’re going camping.” Steve smiles, as if he just said something he finds amusing.

“Excuse me?” That sentence was the last thing he was expecting to hear. It snaps him completely out of structure.

“Camping.” Steve gestures to the front window. “Have a look.”

Tony pulls back the drape and peers out into the driveway. Parked in front of the house is a large, beat-up, blue pickup truck with a camper mounted on the truck bed. It looks very out of place in Bruce’s suburban neighborhood.

“Is this a joke?”, Tony turns to Steve in plain confusion.

“Nope.” Steve looks very amused now. “We’re going on a road trip. I bet you city boy have never been on one. Am I wrong?” he lifts his eyebrows and continues at Tony’s lack of response, “I just thought it’ll do us both good to get away for a bit.”

Tony vacantly looks back and forth between Steve and the camper in the driveway as he tries to make sense of the situation.

“You are also from New York,” he says, emotionless.

“Yes, that’s right,” Steve patiently repeats. He gives Tony a grin. “But my old man used to take me on trips every summer. It was great, the open road – purple mountains majesty, amber waves of grain, sky blue lakes.” Tony isn’t quite listening. He’s analyzing Steve’s face. He knows the man doesn’t age but right now he looks impossibly younger. Especially clean shaven.

Steve interrupts his thoughts. “So? What do you say?”

Tony has no idea what to say. The idea is frankly preposterous, but at the same time he has no reason to stay at Bruce’s, or to go back to New York.

“And what if I have no wish to do this thing, Steve? What if I want to stay here?”

Steve drops his smile and looks at him dead in the eye.

“Listen, Tony. Let’s be honest here, Bruce’s got his own stuff to deal with. He can’t look after you anymore.”

Tony immediately recoils, “I do not need anyone to ‘look after me’,” he says testily.

Steve ignores this and stands up. “Sure, whatever you say. I’m taking you off his hands, regardless, and I won’t take no for an answer. Now go get your stuff together, I want to get out of the city before rush hour hits.”

Tony just stares at him for a moment, nonplussed. Is that... a joke? Half of the city is gone. As if one could forget such a thing. He sounds like the old Steve. But Tony knows he lost Bucky, it can’t have been easy. How does he do it?

Tony feels like he ought to argue with him, insist on staying or, if he has indeed impinged on Bruce for too long, leave on his own. But it seems like it will take so much energy to argue, far more than Tony has. He has nowhere to go and no way to get there and in his heart he knows that, in the state he’s in, he won’t last a week on his own. The truth is he doesn’t much care where he is, in Bruce’s guest room or Steve’s camper. It simply doesn’t matter.

“All right,” Tony mumbles.

It takes him a long time to gather his things, though he only ends up with a single backpack containing all his possessions. At least all he needs. It’s almost funny to him, the thought of his previous opulent life. How meaningless it all can be when you have no one to share it with.

At some point, Steve comes in and leans against the door frame of the guest room, watching him pack. Tony can feel Steve’s eyes upon him, and it makes him aware of how slowly he’s moving, of how his hands shake, how he keeps drifting off, forgetting what he’s doing, standing and staring at nothing. Steve doesn’t comment, just watches him, patient.

“Ready?” he asks, when Tony finally picks up the backpack. There is something in Steve’s eyes that’s a little too close to pity. It makes Tony feel pathetic, which he supposes he is.

He nods, and lets Steve lead the way out of Bruce’s house, open the passenger door to the pickup, then stow Tony’s bag behind the seat.

“Buckle up,” Steve instructs him, so Tony does, and they drive away.

“I should tell Bruce I’m leaving,” Tony says, only remembering after they’ve been driving for a half hour or so.

Steve turns to look at him, keen blue eyes taking him in head to toe. “He knows,” is all he says.

Ah, of course. It surely had been Bruce’s idea. Once Steve says it, it becomes obvious. Bruce must have wanted to be rid of him and he somehow convinced Steve to take him. Yes, that must be it. Tony doesn’t feel angry, only vaguely ashamed at not realizing it before. His once genius mind had been pretty useless these days. He folds his hands in his lap – they keep twitching every now and then – and sits silently as the miles and miles of city roll past.


	2. Chapter 2

Steve doesn’t talk. It half surprises Tony, but he guesses it makes sense. He was the one constantly running his mouth off after all, not Steve. Steve was more of an only-speak-when-absolutely-needed kind of guy. He still is, it seems. But at the same time, he’s different. Tony isn’t sure what it is, maybe it’s nothing more than the haunted look all of them wear now. He glances at Steve and he can see it, despite Steve’s obvious efforts to hide it back when he showed up to Bruce’s doorway like a damn ray of sunshine. Tony thinks back to the way Steve burned with drive and passion back when they first met. There was an ambition there, and a lot of hope. He wonders how much of that Steve left behind; wonders if it was a good thing for him to let go of it, or not.

Steve plays CDs, music that Tony doesn’t know, other than it’s old. Steve hums along quietly with some of the songs. Tony listens while he stares at the ever-changing sights through his window. He thinks that Steve has a nice voice.

They leave the city behind, drive up into the hills, heading east. As evening falls, they pull into a scrubby campground dotted with eucalyptus trees, so Tony guesses that Steve is serious about the camping.

Tony gets out of the truck and stretches his stiff muscles. It’s late summer and the air smells of dust and pine and pleasantly medicinal scent of eucalyptus. It is warm, even after the sun has set. Tony does not know what to do, so he sits at the picnic table and watches Steve set up camp, pulling folding chairs out of the camper, building a little fire, setting up a stove and lantern.

Steve makes dinner, then does the dishes. They sit silently until the fire dies down and the air turns chill.

“C’mon,” Steve says, tiredly getting to his feet. “Light’s out.”

The camper is surprisingly cozy, cramped but well-organized. Tony’s bed is on the couch, Steve’s in the bunk above the truck’s cab. There is a light up there, and from where he lays Tony can see the top of Steve’s head as he reclines against his pillows, reading a book. Tony catches himself repeatedly opening his eyes in the dark, as if he’s checking to be sure Steve is still there. When he realizes what he’s doing, he makes himself stop and resolutely keeps his eyes closed.

*

The next day is much like the one before it, and the one after that like its predecessor. They drive, they find a campground, Steve sets up camp and makes dinner, they eat, they go to bed. Tony just goes through the motions. The only thing Steve asks of him is that he assist with navigation, so he takes charge of the road atlas and the thick, dog-eared US camping guide and helps Steve find the highway exits and campgrounds. Other than that, Steve makes no demands on him. The silences between them are long and uninterrupted. Apparently, Steve doesn’t feel the need to make conversation, and Tony is incapable of it.

Steve is good at keeping to himself. He doesn’t pry or tell stories or try to reminisce. He keeps his focus on the road, though sometimes Tony swears he can feel Steve watching him. When he turns to look though, Steve is always staring straight ahead.

It takes Tony about a week before he gets tired of watching Steve set up camp and decides to build the fire himself while Steve unloads the folding chairs and cooking supplies, and then a few days longer before he asks Steve for a book to read in the evening before he turns out the little light above his bed. Steve gives him a book appropriately titled _On the Road._

*

They’re barreling down the highway somewhere in west Texas and it would seem that Steve’s decided he’s in the mood to talk for a change. He’s going on and on about fishing and Tony isn’t really listening, just staring out the window, empty headed, letting the sound of Steve’s voice fill up the space enough to keep his thoughts at bay.

“I’ve never been fishing,” he mumbles, just to make it seem like he’s contributing to the conversation.

“What? Never? Not even once?” Steve asks in disbelief.

Tony snorts. “What, and you did, Brooklyn boy?” Tony asks in disbelief.

“I did, actually! Almost every summer. My old man and I would drive up to Lake Champlain, spend the weekend camping and fishing there.” Steve is smiling at the road ahead, clearly very fond of those memories. His smile dimmed a little when he added, more quietly, “We took Buck with us, once or twice.”

“Well Howard had other things to do, couldn’t be bothered to take me fishing,” Tony interrupts, just for something to say, but apparently that was a wrong choice, because the next thing he knows Steve is saying _oh hell no, now that just isn’t right_.

Tony gifts Steve with the smallest of smiles as he tells him “Language.” Steve looks at him half surprised, as if he had forgotten the last time Tony made a joke.

Their little moment is broken as Tony, slightly uncomfortable all of a sudden, protests “But honestly, I don’t even like fish.”

“Well good, because we aren’t going to eat them.” Steve replies as they pull up in front of a sporting goods store. He heads into the store with Tony behind him, who he doesn’t want to sit and bake in the Texas heat.

“What do we do with the fish, if we don’t plan to eat them?” Tony asks, as Steve compares fishing rods with a critical eye, mumbling something about them being different back in his time.

“We throw them back,” he replies, as if it were the most obvious thing in the world.

Tony blinks at Steve in incomprehension and then huffs a little laugh. “So you do it just for the hell of it?”

“For fun, Tony. You do remember fun, don’t you?” Steve jokes, his tone still kind. “Somewhere back in the mists of time, I know you used to have fun.” He smiles, the flash of pity crossing his eyes again for a second before he puts a hand on his shoulder, large and warm. “We’re just going to go fishing. And it’ll be fine,” he reassures.

Tony nods and doesn’t say anything more. Steve keeps shopping, standing a little closer than before and Tony is grateful for it. He’s discovered that when Steve is close, it keeps everything else farther away.

Tony thinks fishing is dumb. There is too much waiting, too little to do, and he decides catching fish and then releasing them is wasteful and cruel. He complains, and his line gets tangled and he cut his finger on a fish hook. Despite all that, it’s the best day he’s had in a long time. Even after their truck broke down. Tony fixed it in twenty minutes while Steve worriedly waited, and then they decided to stop for the day and spend the night camping by the same lake they’d spent the whole afternoon fishing in.

Afterward, they’re laying on the dry grass near the shore of the lake, Tony’s staring up mindlessly at the sky and Steve’s unknotting a ruined line, used by Tony. He tells him he’s the worst fisherman he’s ever met and Tony crankily reminds Steve that he grew up in the middle of the fucking city, and what does he expect?

Steve just cocks his head, a glint in his eye. “Never thought I’d say it, but it’s good to see you being a bickering pain in the neck again.”

Tony opens his mouth to protest, then snaps it closed when he realizes that it’s true, he is being a pain. He swallows, the unfamiliarity of it hitting him hard. It’s been a long time since he’s felt much of anything – even feeling annoyed is overwhelming.

They camp at the lake. Steve makes macaroni and cheese out of a box and Tony decides it is one of the best things he’s ever eaten. For sure beats any fancy private chef meal he’s had before.

Tony gets up in the middle of the night and walks down to the lake. He can’t sleep and it’s stuffy in the camper. Outside the air is warm but fresh, the campground quiet. The lake is motionless, smooth as glass. Tony wades into it, feeling the cold mud sink beneath his feet. He thinks about swimming out into it, but he doesn’t trust that if he did he’d ever come back to shore, so he stays where he is, feet rooted to the lake bottom.

In the gray of the hour before dawn Steve wakes him, a strange, sad look on his face. Tony is curled up in the dirt at the edge of the lake, dried mud cake on his feet. Neither of them say anything. It’s too early and Tony doesn’t have any words. He gets up and follows Steve back to the camper, lies down on the bed and doesn’t complain when Steve covers him with a blanket. He can feel Steve standing there watching him after he closes his eyes, but he doesn’t want to see the look on his face so he lays still and waits for Steve to climb up to his bunk.

The touch to his forehead is a shock. He stiffens involuntarily and ruthlessly represses a shiver when Steve’s fingers glide over his skin, pushing his hair out of his face.

“What am I going to do with you?” Steve murmurs. Tony remains steadfastly silent. It’s a rhetorical question, in any case.

After a moment, Steve moves away, and Tony listens carefully until he’s sure that Steve has gone back to bed.

*

They camp in the Smokies, at a campground with a view of ancient, rounded mountains. There’s a path that leads out of it into the woods and eventually, a couple miles in, to an abandoned cabin. They sit on the dilapidated front porch and munch on gorp.

“We’re only two days away from New York”, Steve says, carefully. Tony knows they were heading that direction but had avoided thinking about coming back to the city that held so much pain for him.

“Why would you want to go? There’s nothing to come back to”. Tony is looking down at his food, his voice showing no interest for the city he once called home.

Steve speaks again, his voice firm. “Half of us are still here, Tony. If I could not protect the others, I can still try and protect the ones left behind. I owe them that” He looks at Tony, who sees desperation in Steve’s eyes. The same he himself had felt after the snap. He didn’t share it now, there was only emptiness. “ _We_ owe them that,” Steve adds, frustrated by Tony’s indifference.

“It’s clear that the world would have been better off without our help”, Tony shrugs. “It cost me everything, but I learned the lesson. I won’t be playing the hero anymore.”

“To hell with that,” Steve snaps, glaring at Tony with a fury he’s seldom seen before. “Don’t give me that defeatist bullshit, Tony. I damn well saved people, we did make lives better. And you think we never made a difference?”

“No, you have,” Tony admits. “I’m sorry, it’s clear that you’ve protected them. It’s I who have not.” He looks at Steve, who seems… sad, almost scared, at his lack of emotion.

Steve then suddenly leans forward, until he’s very close, so close that Tony has the crazy thought that Steve is going to kiss him, only the expression on his face is not that of a man bent on romance. Quite the opposite. “It’s not too late, you stupid man,” Steve hisses.

Tony would beg to differ, but he doesn’t say so. He doesn’t say anything, doesn’t even rise to the bait of the insult as he once would have, a long time ago, when he cared about such things.

After a time, they get to their feet. Steve stretches, arms above his head, back arched. His t-shirt rides up, revealing hipbones, smooth skin, and lean muscle.

Again, Tony finds himself staring. Again, he quickly looks away.

*

Steve does not bring up the subject of New York again, but apparently he decides to postpone the destination, and they continue heading north. The leaves have turned by the time they reach Michigan’s Upper Peninsula, and the woods are striped in brilliant swaths of red and orange and gold. Tony has never seen anything like it. He feels a pang of something similar to regret, of not having traveled as much, back then.

They go for a long walk through the woods. It’s quiet, their footfalls cushioned on fallen leaves. The trail leads up the side of a hill, spills out onto a large granite ledge near the top. Below, there is a valley painted in streaks of bright color, a dark green river snaking through it. When Tony looks down he sees that the ledge sheers off abruptly. The fall to the rocks below would be uninterrupted, an efficient downward plummet to oblivion. He sways a bit, feeling the heavy, narcotic pull of empty space.

Steve’s hand closes around his arm and pulls him back and Tony wants to wail in protest. But he only stands and stares at the ground, his hands clenched so tightly that his nails cut into the skin of his palms. He’s trembling and for a moment he feels so weak and afraid that he’s sure he will cry.

“You’re going to have to go through me first,” Steve says. Tony glances up and finds Steve glaring at him like he’d rather punch him in the face than speak to him at the moment, “And I have no intention of making it easy for you.”

Tony is angry and ashamed. He feels himself teetering on the brink of control, about to break. If he can’t break apart on the rocks at the foot of the cliff, he’s going to break apart some other time, some other way, sometime in the very near future, and he has a feeling that falling off a cliff will be a lot less messy.

“Come on,” Steve gives him a gentle shove this time, right between the shoulder blades. “It’s getting dark.”

Tony can feel Steve’s eyes on him for the whole long, silent walk back to the truck.

*

“You were getting better,” Steve says that night, as they’re sitting beside the fire. He’s sipping on some hot canned soup. It’s cold at night and Tony sits close enough to the fire that he has to be careful that the soles of his shoes don’t melt. “What happened?”, he asks, staring into the fire.

Tony’s head snaps up. They don’t talk about this, ever. They don’t talk about anything other than the scenery and the songs on the radio and what they’re going to have for dinner that night. They certainly don’t discuss Tony’s state of mind and whether it’s better or worse than the day they left LA two months ago.

“There is no ‘getting better’, Steve,” Tony says. “I don’t even know what that means.” He pokes at the fire with a stick, watches sparks rise up. “I don’t think it’s possible to – to fix what’s wrong with me.”

Steve sighs. “Okay, you’re right. So, there’s no getting better. You just have to figure out how to be better at being broken then, because you’re doing a bad job of it at the moment.”

Tony falls silent. “Is that what you do?”, he asks after a moment.

Steve’s lips twist into a humorless smile. “I guess.” He meets Tony’s eyes and Tony thinks that right then, at that moment, Steve looks his age for the first time since he met him. “I’m good at being broken,” he shrugs, “Had a lifetime’s practice before I even woke up from the ice.” He takes a sip of soup. “It isn’t so bad, once you get used to it.”

They sit and stare into the flames, no sound but the crackling of the fire.

“I don’t know what favor Bruce had to call in for you to take me off his hands, but it can’t have been worth it.” He says, trying to sound joking and falling awfully short. It’s hard to meet Steve’s eyes, but Tony doesn’t expect to see the look of complete surprise on his face.

“You think I’m doing this for Bruce?” Steve shakes his head in amazement. “Good Lord, Tony. And I thought _I_ was the clueless one here.”

Tony is confused. Of course he’d assumed Bruce was the one to call up Steve. It doesn’t matter anyway, but he half heartedly asks, “Who, then? And why?”

Steve’s lips thin to an angry line. “Maybe one day you’ll figure that one out on your own.” He gets to his feet. “I’m not going to tell you.”

Tony watches him disappear into the camper. Later, when he goes to bed, the light is out in Steve’s bunk, but Tony can tell by the sound of his breathing that he isn’t asleep. It rains hard the next day. Steve lounges on the couch, reading and ignoring him. Tony is ostensibly reading too, but in actuality he’s trying to reach a decision. Steve had taken him in of his own free will, out of the goodness of his old, golden, American heart. What’s in it for him? Tony can’t say.

*

He’s always known Steve is a loner. He hadn’t wanted to reside in the Tower with the rest of the team, and he barely went out. Spent his time mostly in a gloomy gym or running outside. He had found it hard to adapt to modern society, but even ignoring all of that, Steve had always been quite the introvert. It doesn’t make sense that he’d give up his privacy as he has, especially not for Tony, who isn’t even what one could call a friend. He’d never been too kind with old Cap. Hell, he’d tried to kill his only true friend, the last person Steve had from his previous life. Are they becoming friends now? Tony finds it odd that he doesn’t know the answer.

Tony thinks back to the beginning, those first missions in New York. Steve had been a different man then. Heroic, hopeful… but also sad, and lonely. He remembers the instant animosity they’d felt towards each other that had exploded into violence years later, and then led to more violence. He remembers how Steve would throw himself head first into danger at every single opportunity. He had taken it as an act, the perfect Captain America. But it doesn’t take a genius to figure out now, in retrospect, that Steve hadn’t been overly attached to the idea of staying alive.

Maybe that’s why Steve has done what he’s done. Perhaps he understands something of the way Tony is feeling now. He’s had to start over once before, after all, so maybe he’s the only one who could understand.

Tony makes his decision then. He decides to try. He figures he owes Steve at least that much. The very idea of it is almost more exhausting and frightening than he can bear, but he doesn’t let that dissuade him. He’s done a lot of impossible things in his life. Living would just be the latest in a long string of them.


	3. Chapter 3

There are a few days in Minnesota when the temperature climbs to almost 80 degrees. The sunlight has the clear, golden cast of autumn, insects buzz in the tall grass, the breeze is warm, drying the sweat on Tony’s skin. They camp at another lake, spend the days doing nothing. Steve makes no move to leave and Tony lets Steve make the decisions.

The campground is almost empty, just a few RVs grouped around the bathrooms. The other campers, senior citizens by the look of them, nod and wave when the both of them walk past, but neither Steve nor Tony try to make conversation. Better if they’re not recognized, he thinks. The “heroes” who failed to do their one job.

During the day they swim in the cool water of the lake, then sit on their fold-out chaise lounges on the sore, shifting them along the water line as the sun moves across the sky. Steve is reading The DaVinci Code. He complains about it constantly – the bad writing, the ridiculous plot, the poor characterization – but he can barely put it down, so Tony thinks it must be better than he’s letting on.

Tony writes in a notebook he bought in a gas station back in Arkansas. He’s started writing about where they go, what they do – facts and figures, mileage, altitude, population. And he makes lists. He has lists of the places they’ve visited and what they’ve done at each one; a list of foods he’s tried for the first time – grits, chitlins, okra, pot roast. He keeps track of what they spend and where they stay. There’s also a list of places they haven’t visited but might someday. It’s short and the writing is smaller than his other lists, but it’s there.

Though it makes him cringe with embarrassment to even think of it, there is a list of words he associates with Steve. He keeps telling himself that he needs to tear that page out and throw it away, but instead he just keeps adding to it. ‘Shine’, he writes, hating himself. But the rays of light are hitting Steve’s hair in just such a way that there’s no other word for it.

He’s aware of Steve all the time now, knows his mood simply by the sound of his breathing, can tell when he’s tired and ready to relinquish the wheel, can  _ feel _ his presence as clearly as he can see him. He knows the rhythms of his days and the way he smells and how he’s quiet in the mornings and cranky when it’s cold, and how he needs time alone to read or sketch or run every day or else he gets out of sorts. It’s something new, this awareness, as if he wasn’t really paying attention before, and it makes Tony realize that something has changed. For a long time, he was barely aware of the outside world, but lately the beauty of their surroundings has been striking him in sudden, visceral flashes, almost painful in their intensity. And he is aware of other people – well, mostly of one person. He’s  _ too _ aware of him, in a way that won’t leave him be. He’s vaguely annoyed by this distraction, and at the same time grateful for it. He’d much rather be obsessed with someone else’s life than with his own.

It takes him a surprising amount of time to pinpoint what it is he’s feeling. When he thinks back, he realizes that it was somewhere around that disastrous fishing trip in Texas that he first felt it, a pain in his chest like a hand squeezing his heart when he looks at Steve. He’d thought it was guilt and shame at the time, but he knows that wasn’t all there was to it.

From Texas to Minnesota, that’s how long it took him. The realization hits him like a ton of bricks in a moment notable only for its ordinariness. Steve had gone into town to buy groceries – Tony tends to stay away from towns and stores and anywhere he’d have to interact with people – and they’re standing in the kitchen area of the camper, stowing boxes and cans in the cupboards when Tony pulls four boxes of macaroni and cheese out of a paper bag.

“You always get this,” Tony remarks.

“Well, it’s somebody’s favorite,” says Steve. He’s not looking at Tony but he’s got this smile on his face, as if he’s pleased about something, as if he’s  _ happy _ . And Tony realizes then and there, standing in the tiny camper kitchen, holding a box of Kraft macaroni and cheese, that somehow and against all that’s logical and practical and reasonable, he’s fallen in love with Steve.

Steve glances at him, then looks again when he sees Tony just standing there, frozen in place, the box of pasta in his hand.

“What?” Steve asks. “Don’t tell me you’ve decided you don’t like it anymore?”

Steve is watching him with a puzzled frown on his face and his hair is hanging in his eyes. He hasn’t shaved in a couple of days and Tony knows he hasn’t bathed recently other than taking a dip in the lake, and he smells like sweat. His t-shirt is ratty and has a stain on the chest, his jeans have holes in them and he’s wearing chuck taylors. He’s got a loaf of bread in one hand and a jar of mayonnaise in the other and he’s beautiful. There’s nothing romantic about Steve in that moment – nothing that should make Tony’s heart pound and his breath stutter. He can only stare, amazed and overwhelmed at how much he wants this man.

For a moment they stand there, looking at each other, and then Steve deliberately places the bread and the mayonnaise on the counter, takes the box from Tony’s hands and puts it beside the bread.

Tony then snaps back into action, instinctively crowding Steve back against the counter, cradles the back of his head in one hand and kisses him. Tony’s kiss isn’t hesitant or unsure. It’s as if he’s got no doubt that Steve will let him – will welcome him. He kisses firmly, unhurriedly, thoroughly, learning it all again as if they’ve got all the time in the world. 

“Took you long enough,” Steve whispers roughly on a short break, and then their mouths are together again. Tony presses his body hungrily against Steve’s, burying his hands in his hair, holding him too tightly, suddenly afraid that this is some kind of joke or trick or hallucination and that he’ll blink and it’ll be over and they’ll just be putting groceries away again.

It feels good, Steve’s arms around him, Steve’s body aligned to his, the slight height difference, the way Tony’s head tips back and Steve’s hangs down over his. Tony’s not used to kissing a man, or anyone lately, really. But kissing Steve makes him feel alive, which is something he hadn’t even known he longed to feel again.

Steve’s hands slide down his back to touch his ass and Tony’s mouth falls open as a wave of heat travels up his body. Steve’s tongue plunges into his mouth and Tony groans – fuck, the man can  _ kiss _ . He’s partially surprised, but elated with the discovery. Next thing he notices, Steve’s hips grind into his own with the unmistakable rhythm of fucking and it hits Tony suddenly that he and Steve are about to have sex and he wants it – he wants it so much – more than he can remember wanting anything for years and years.

Steve slides a hand around his hip, palms the front of Tony’s pants where it’s trapped between his legs, presses gently, tentatively. Tony’s hips surge forward on their own accord, a wordless answer to Steve’s wordless question, but Tony says it anyway, just to be sure there’s no misunderstanding.

“Yes.” Is all he can muster at the moment. He kisses Steve hard and quick, mumbling against his lips. “Please. Yes.”

“’kay,” Steve mumbles in turn. He steps backward, drawing Tony with him, his hands still clutching Tony by the waist. “Let’s just – ugh – let me…“

Somehow they make it to the couch without breaking the kiss and Steve gives Tony enough of a shove to send him sprawling. He looks up in time to catch Steve’s grin before he pounces, landing heavily on top of him.

“Ooof,” Tony gasps, the air knocked out of him, but he’s smiling for the first time in a long time as Steve’s mouth reconnects with his, opening wide and wet and sweet and demanding and Tony thinks that maybe if this can just go on forever, then everything will be okay.

*

They’re in South Dakota and Tony wakes up one morning and leaves the warmth of their bed, pulls on sweatpants and the fleece jacket and hat that Steve made him buy the first time the temperature dipped below freezing. Outside the ground is hard and the half-full water bottle that he left out last night has chunks of ice floating in it. Tony can feel the cold air travel into his lungs as he inhales. It feels like he can follow the path of every atom of oxygen as it moves through his body. It feels clean, pure.

He stands at the edge of their campsite and pees into the brush. The campground is on a rise and there is a view of striated canyon walls, glowing in tones of rose and peach and ochre in the early morning light. There’s little vegetation, miles of twisted earth and stone, bare, rocky soil, flat-topped buttes and uplifted towering spires. It is desolate and raw and harsh. Tony thinks it should be ugly, but he finds it very beautiful.

He hears Steve approaching but he doesn’t turn around. He tenses only a little as Steve’s arms slide around his waist. There’s a cup of coffee in Steve’s hand and Tony takes it from him. It’s strong and dark, the way he likes it. Steve likes his even stronger, otherwise it has no effect on him, so they make two pots every morning, one for each of them.

“Mornin’,” Steve’s voice is a low rumble in his ear.

“Good morning.” Maybe it is, he thinks.

“’S cold.” Steve’s nose is like an ice cube against Tony’s neck, but his lips are warm. Tony hums in agreement and leans back, letting Steve take his weight.

“I want to go see that dig today,” Steve says. He’s been talking for days about some archaeological site where dinosaur fossils have been found. “You don’t have to come, if you’d rather stay out here.”

“No, I’ll come,” Tony might not be as interested in dinosaurs as Steve is, but he doesn’t want to miss out on the blond’s enthusiasm.

They’re quiet for a moment. A bird calls, loud and raucous, and Tony catches a flash of black and white out of the corner of his eye.

“Magpie,” Steve tells him and Tony mentally adds it to the list of new animals he has seen on this trip – bison, bighorn sheep, eagle, prairie dog, pronghorn antelope. Later, he will add ‘magpie’ to the list in his notebook.

“Come back to bed,” Steve’s voice is low in his ear. He pushes his hips against Tony’s backside and the promise of a slow, sleepy fuck sends warmth into every cell of Tony’s body. Steve takes his hand, leads him back to the camper, and without a backward glance Tony leaves the frost-tinged morning to thaw out on its own.

*

Steve says ‘deserve’’s got nothing to do with anything; that life doesn’t work that way. He says ‘life is for the living’ and that all he and Tony can do is try to live the best they can and do their damnedest not to fuck anything else up. Steve says he spent a lot of years wanting to die. He says life gets better once you decide you want to live. Tony hands himself over, body and soul. He doesn’t have the strength to stand on his own anymore and Steve says he won’t let him give up and that means Steve has to carry the weight for the both of them sometimes. It isn’t fair, but Steve says life isn’t fair. And he says he doesn’t mind either, which Tony doesn’t understand. Steve doesn’t owe him a thing, and yet he smiles at him and tells jokes that Tony doesn’t know how to laugh at and makes him do ridiculous things like fish and go to baseball games and stop at roadside attractions such as the Giant Ball of String and the Corn Palace, and at night he puts his hands and his mouth on Tony’s body and makes him forget about everything – gives him the blessed gift of forgetfulness that is the sweetest gift of all. 

None of it makes any sense, so Tony has stopped trying to figure it out. Now he just goes along; rides ‘shotgun’, lets Steve pick the destination and tries to keep them on the right track until they get there and Steve steps on the brake and puts the truck into ‘park’, turns to Tony with a grin and announces, “We’re here”.

*

“It is so beautiful here.” Tony looks around in wonder. They’re driving through Montana, big mountains and bigger sky, forests and plains and winding silver-glinting rivers. They haven’t seen another car in nearly an hour. “I could live here,” Tony says. “In this valley. It’s so beautiful. I think I could be –” he almost says ‘happy here’, but he realizes in time that it’s asking too much. “I might like to live here,” he finishes instead.

“It’ll get real cold around here in the winter,” Steve warns. “Real damn cold.”

“But you would keep me warm.” Tony says, slowly recuperating some of his naturally cheeky demeanor.

“Sure would,” Steve says and smiles.

“I have never lived anywhere this cold.” Tony tries to imagine the plains blanketed in snow, wind slicing down the valley, mountains covered in white. It would be quiet and lonely and peaceful.

“Me neither.”

“We could find someplace isolated,” Tony ventures, looking over at Steve to check his reaction.

“Out here you could probably go for months without seeing anyone,” Steve says, “I think you’d get pretty sick of the sight of me by the time spring rolled around."

“I would not get sick of the sight of you,” Tony says, watching him. “I could never get sick of the sight of you.” He says, seriously, and then is surprised to see Steve blush. A big rosy flush creeping up from the collar of his shirt until it reaches his hairline. He tries to repress a pleased smile, but Tony can already see it tugging the corner of his lip upward.

Tony then turns his attention forward, to the long ribbon of road stretching out in front of them, mountains in the distance, hills on either side, brown pastures edged by barbed wire fence. 

Five miles down the road Steve slams on the brakes, puts the truck into reverse and backs up, comes to a screeching stop. There’s a long, rutted drive and at the end of it they can just see a house tucked into a stand of evergreens at the base of a hill. It’s two-story, log framed, with a big porch, a green metal roof and a stone chimney. There’s a barn and a shed and no neighbors for miles and a “For Lease” sign tacked onto the fence.

It’s perfect.

They look at each other and laugh.

*

*

*  


*

The End

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you so much for reading :)


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